December 2011
39 posts
Indigenous Maya communities in southern Mexico have begun a year-long countdown to 21 December 2012, which will mark the end of a five-millenia cycle in the ancient Mayan calendar.
Mayan priests in El Salvador have also held ceremonies to mark the occasion
“There´s tools and colours for all of us,
to lend from nature to make the world
more understandable and beautiful”.
Ms Kwei (pictured) is one of millions of poor people to have benefited from the hottest trend in microfinance: village savings and loans associations. Millions of people like her survive on meagre and erratic earnings. Access to the simplest financial services can help stabilise their incomes, which in turn makes them less vulnerable to diseases and natural disasters. An unexpected flood or fever can push a poor family into utter destitution, or the muscular arms of loan sharks.
An illegal immigrant from Mexico, called Angel, undergoing a dialysis treatment. The government pays for a lifetime of dialysis, but not a transplant.
A poster showing a woman attacked by officers was carried by one of several thousand marchers Tuesday in downtown Cairo.
even the Switzerland of Latin America can’t escape drug war violence :(
Costa Rican and U.S. Guard Coast members seized this semi-submersible which was carrying seven tons of cocaine. It is shown here at Costa Rica’s Puntarenas Coast Guard headquarters on Sept. 17, 2008. Four Colombians were arrested.
